“We may be cooked. Trying to overturn the result of election without giving the elected a peaceful day in office is an odious thing. There are millions of people among us who have done that now. It’s too big a sin – I don’t think very many of them will ever be able to walk it back and reengage with politics in a normal way.”
—Commenter “Rory” on Althouse’s excerpt—without commentary—on a piece by Carl Hulse of the Times in which he concludes that President Trump won’t be impeached before the 2020 elections, and probably never was going to be.
I’m not especially interested in Hulse’s conclusion, which I think is obvious now (as I wrote yesterday) and was obvious to me for some time. I do think Rory is spot on about the sin of “trying to overturn the result of election without giving the elected a peaceful day in office,” a neat summary of the conduct Ethics Alarms has been condemning since the 2016 Presidential election. This is the essence of the “2016 Post-Election Ethics Train Wreck”, as the Ethics Alarms tag terms it, when an entire political party and most of its supporters, plus the mainstream news media, decided to defy and sacrifice crucial American traditions regarding elections and our institutions because it couldn’t accept losing to a candidate it detested. It is this divisive, reckless, dangerous conduct that I regard as the single greatest ethics crisis in my lifetime.
I am not certain about Rory’s conclusion, that having shattered these crucial American principles—there are many of them, large and small, such as not delighting in the humiliation of our national leader by others—-the citizens involved will never “be able to walk it back and reengage with politics in a normal way.” My continuing fight to try to throw metaphorical ice water in the faces of those who have been corrupted by Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Black Caucus, MSNBC, CNN, Stephen Colbert, Charles Blow and so many others and say, “Snap out of it!” will continue, futile or not. I don’t think it is futile.
I hope not.
Ethics Alarms 
I am especially disturbed that Democrats, the ACLU, etc., are furious that the Justice Department will begin executing Federal Death Row inmates again. They vow to fight it every step of the way.
If Democrats hadn’t spent the last three years trying to merely thwart Donald Trump, they could have repealed the Death Penalty entirely, and preemptively mooted any discussion of resuming executions.
They feign shock that a valid law will not be allowed to become dead letter. They feign shock that executive agreements purposely not submitted for the advise and consent of the Senate can be withdrawn at will. They feign shock that executive orders de-prioritizing certain lawful immigration enforcement efforts can be withdrawn by the chief executive.
I feign shock at such behavior.
Progressives are too stupid (arrogant?) to learn that standards they violate can be used against them.
Rules made by fiat can be reversed when the dictator changes, too.
My fear is that not only is the commenter correct, but that he has not gone far enough. Yes, there are millions of people who have committed a heinous act by discarding our grand democracy. Yes, for many if not most of them, they will be unable to repent and embrace it once more. But there are millions more of us who have been lambasted, mocked, threatened, derided, and branded with a scarlet “T”. Those millions will have to find some way to trust the other half again.
And they had better figure out how to do it before the pendulum swings again. Because if the disastrous response to the election is immediately followed up with four years of “(insert democratic candidate here) was fairly elected. You deplorables HAVE to get out of the way and let him/her lead. Don’t you love your country? Think of the damage that you’re doing to the system!” THEN we will be beyond the point of no return.
At this point it seems to me more likely than not that they’ll have another four years of Trump to try and deal with.
But it’s still early. We shall see.
Jack,
Great piece!
You closed, saying:
“My continuing fight to try to throw metaphorical ice water in the faces of those who have been corrupted by * * * and say, “Snap out of it!” will continue, futile or not.”
I just want to encourage you to keep up your good and faithful work. It’s not futile. Our democracy and freedoms are worth the fight!! Your efforts, your love of country, and you, are appreciated!!
Blessings on you and your family today !!
– – Ian
“Throughout history, demagogues have used state power to target minority communities and political enemies, often culminating in state violence,” she wrote. “Today, we face that threat in our own country, where the president of the United States is using the influence of our highest office to mount racist attacks on communities across the land.”
That’s AOC quoted in the Times today. Once one understands how *they* operate, one sees that what they accuse their enemies of is what they themselves do.
My view is that a minority block has been given the power and the moral permission and justification to advocate, radically, for its specific interests. In that struggle it is necessary to vilify Whites and whiteness and the sector that has held power and still does to a large degree. In pursuit of this, this minority-block takes advantage of state-power mechanisms to make an assault on its ‘enemies’. This is the strange aspect here. A battle has been waged and is being waged against the majority demographic by a semi-united minority block. And they get support from government in this. But they also get support because in certain senses they have duped the white establishment.
If they did not have *powerful allies* among the Whites, they would not be able to carry on like this. This problem — if it is recognized as a problem — began years back. I do not know how else to put it, or to see it, except to believe that it has been white activism, operating against its own interests (Sixties radicalism essentially) that has brought this about. Obviously, no one could say that the effort did not arise from if not good then from idealistic motives. But how strange it is when — as in my case — I see ‘majority dispossession’ as the object, as the essence of the problem, and one that must be resisted.
If things go on as they are now, eventually the Democrat political machine and structure will triumph. It has to — eventually — because this is a numbers-game.
I think then that the Democrat political machine — this party needs to be seen in this way. If that is so it means that the Opposition Party is, substantially, a party of the Whites. If anyone sees it differently I would sure like to hear the argument.
Race is the wedge not the issue itself; it is being used to leverage political revolution. The goal is overturning the US Constitution to rid America of the Bill of Rights thus leaving the, eventual, political minority with no recourse but to submit.
The real issue for the projected political minority isn’t race, though its genesis may lie there, it is educating some among several identity groups their best futures lie outside of the projected political neo-communist power model. (There is a lot of solid history showing this must be done or the apparatchiks will be imprisoned too.) We’ll see if this can be achieved. I, for one, do not believe identity groups will act monolithically. Let’s hope the new state, if it comes to pass, will not become entrenched to the point of being unremovable.
At least the newly minted slaves will have something to keep them busy the first couple of years after the Bill of Rights is defeated… burying up to a quarter of the population from the resulting civil war.